Bøker av Peter Conrad

In his book Imagining America (originally published in 1980), Peter Conrad shows how the English literary imagination over the course of a century devised for itself a contradictory series of ideal or alarming Americas which it then sets out to actualize.

A kaleidoscopic investigation of Dickens's superhuman imagination, from one of the greatest literary critics of our time. See DIckens as never before in this creative biography of his life through his storytelling - the characters, places and emotions conjured up across all his novels, letters, stories, public readings and diaries. Peter Conrad, one of the great literary critics of our time, repositions Dickens as a true giant of literature - with the rarest ability to create whole worlds. This is a bold rediscovery of Dickens's universe that both upends our ideas about literature and restores our faith in the power of imagination. Peter believes that Dickens alone rivals Shakespeare - and in many ways betters him. He places great emphasis on Dickens's journalism and his public storytelling - with wonderful 'in the room' vignettes - which he regards as essential to understanding this great writer. He charts how the forces of creation and destruction meet in Dickens, who was ultimately, in the unfinished murder mystery of Edwin Drood, destroyed by his own creative genius. This is a celebration, an examination and an exploration of the most powerful and potent imagination in literature. Peter Conrad's great critical mind is applied to story-telling, making it both a gift if you already love Dickens and a key if you have yet to read him.

Peter Conrad explores the phenomenon of Shakespeare, and assesses Shakespeare's global legacy across every continent and across every genre of the creative arts.

Ranging from the late 19th century to the present, this exhilarating survey explores the ways the medium of cinema has changed the way we see the world.

Despite our culture's proclaimed respect for scientific reason, we live in a society that is no less bedazzled - and bedevilled - by myth than those of our remote ancestors. This book exposes the absurdity and occasional insanity of our godforsaken, demon-haunted contemporary culture.

Highlights the issues at stake, outlining changes in our understanding of ADHD and reviewing sociological research. This book centres on an empirical study of the process of identifying hyperactive children, providing a perceptive introduction to the concepts and issues involved.

Alfred Hitchcock remains the most famous of film-makers. Cultural critic Peter Conrad can date the start of his Hitchcock obsession to his first boyhood viewing of Hitchcock's Psycho, one afternoon in Tasmania some forty years ago.

Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, the two greatest operatic composers of their time, had everything and nothing in common. Their achievements were comparable, but their personalities, their approaches to music and drama, and their complex legacies made them incompatible. Verdi thought of art as a comfort to mankind.

This book tells the stories of heroic Canadian soldiers who escaped from behind enemy lines during the wars of the 20th century. Learn about the Wooden Horse escape and the tragic Great Escape of World War 2. The book includes hair-raising accounts of Canadian soldiers who managed to break to freedom from prisoner trains and eastern front work camps and those who made their way back to Allied territory from behind enemy lines.

Focusing on the nature of deviance, this book investigates the origins and contemporary consequences of the medicalization of deviance. It examines specific cases of madness, alcoholism, opiate addiction, homosexuality, delinquency, and child abuse and draws out their theoretical and policy implications.